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Sunday, September 2, 2007
Why is it so hard to find a cabbie who speaks English?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
She left the message on a reporter’s voice mail.
“Hello, my name is Sylvia Booker,” she began. “I need help finding a taxi cab in my area that’s licensed, reliable and [with a driver] who speaks English.”
Booker’s 1999 Buick Le-Sabre is being repaired. She said a woman with “wonderful insurance” backed into it at a gas pump on Monday. Since the Buick would be ready any day now, the Norcross widow decided to bide time.
“I said, ‘Heck, I just need a way to get back to the collision center when my car is finished,” she told me. “So I called all these taxi cab numbers in the phone book.”
Most of the phone numbers were either disconnected or out of service. When she did get a live person on the line, he or she didn’t speak English. Booker, 75, a retired IRS tax examiner, doesn’t speak Spanish.
In Gwinnett, a local law requires taxi drivers to speak enough English to understand traffic signs, a passenger’s request and how to write a receipt. It also requires drivers to show a green card or other proof that they are allowed to work in the United States legally. In 2009, taxis can’t be older than eight years.
When I talked to Booker, she didn’t come across as a xenophobe. All she wanted was a taxi driver who spoke English. Ethnicity didn’t matter. Yet she couldn’t find one.
“I have no idea why it’s like that,” she said.
Of course, free market and free enterprise dictate. Latino-owned and operated taxis are expected to flower in Gwinnett, home to thousands of Hispanics, many carless.
According to latest figures from the county’s licensing and revenue department, 61 licensed taxis currently operate here. Cursory observations tell me a majority are Latino. Cool.
A question begs to be answered, though. Whatever happened to the native-born taxi drivers and independent operators? It’s as if they’ve vanished, vamoosed, never existed.
It’s a question worthy of posing in regards to other areas, too — construction, lawn maintenance, restaurants, county and state road crews. Hispanics appear to dominate certain jobs. Maybe it’s employer preference. Yet they comprise a mere 17 percent of the county population.
Apparently, there’s an economic and social dynamic at work that’s bigger than my little brain can comprehend. It’s bigger than you and me and the role we play in this mess of a county.
Maybe you can explain it to me. Booker, too. And save that tired tripe about Latinos embracing jobs that Americans reject. I don’t buy it.
Gut instinct tells me something, though. Whatever the reason for the dynamic, its surge in Gwinnett isn’t an altogether blessing or benefit for the majority of us. Hispanics included.
Booker’s condo is a five-minute drive from my office at Jimmy Carter Boulevard and Best Friend Road. I offered her a ride.
• Rick Badie’s column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Contact him at 770-263-3875 or e-mail rbadie@ajc.com.
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